The EZA Community Top 25 Best of 2018!

@tearju-engi
It's the Western time forgot, not the best but certainly enjoyable, and with how similar Samurai and Cowboy films can be I'm genuinely surprised no one has tried to do more with the concept.

Also before I had internet this movie was a bitch and a half to track down, remember my dad talking about it a few times but he could never remember who was in it or what it was called for the longest time, hell the film he told me about back then is completely different from Red Sun.

Film he described back then almost sounded more like the Seven Samurai vs The Magnificent 7, Samurai head to America's after becoming Ronin, get hired by some bandit gang, who was in turn hired to scare off residents of some town for oil or something, handful of various battles between the 7's, until something happens, Samurai realized they were lied to and taken advantage, help defend town, before going after the oil or train barron.

On Shadow of the Colossus - It is my favourite game of all time but voting for it felt wrong. In the end it's a fantastic visual remake with some solid tweaks to controls and it performs beautifully. But it is still very much the game I played on PS2 and PS3. If we had a best remake, for sure I'd put it there but there were too many fantastic new games to just let one of those slide.

On to other stuff. While I didn't vote for Onrush or Dead Cells, I love both. The game I did vote for that didnt' make the list is Hitman 2. Guys, Hitman 2 is fantastic. If you enjoyed the first game, this is more of that in some even more expansive levels. The challenges are still brilliant, elusive missions are fantastic and the multiplayer ghost mode (still in beta) is such a weird fun take. Don't skip!

@axel FO76 got more votes than BFV? I'm offended, lol. I think i'm responsible for 2 of the 3 points BFV got, glad it's not just me.
Also, that Sony 3 year gauntlet is crazy, might change this year though, third party's stepping up big time!

I didn't get around to stuff like God of War or Spiderman this year, so nothing to say on that.

#1: Monster Hunter World
I played my first Monster Hunter game on PSP way back in 2006 or so while studying in Japan, but don't remember all that much about it, but this one really dug its claws into me. Pushed by Ben's hype and the demo, I got sucked in hard. Weekly Hunts made every Sunday feel like an event too. Right now, I'm back in because I thought I'd pop in just to check out the Appreciation Fest, and got addicted all over again. That expansion can't come soon enough.

#4: Valkyria Chronicles 4
I didn't care for the story and characters as much as I did in the first game, but just playing any Valkyria Chronicles feels right. I love these games!

#5 Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum 'n' Fun
The first Taiko game we've gotten since the PS2, and it's just the Japanese version with English text. The best of both worlds. Cruel Angel's Thesis, Cha la Head Cha la, and Odoru Ponpokorin are my highlights, along with the Switch exclusive of Jump Up Superstar. I award this game with "Most Slighted" game of the year.

#6: Red Dead Redemption 2
Had fun with it, but my slight obsession trying to hunt everything and anything started to make it a drag a bit, which is mostly on me, but yeah. Good stuff.

#7: The Awesome Adventures of Captain Spirit
It was free, and I had fun with it.

#8: Super Mario Party
This is actually the first Mario Party game I've ever played, and I bought it as a Christmas present for my 6yo nephew, and we had a blast playing it together, even if he kept stealing all my stars...

On Shadow of the Colossus - It is my favourite game of all time but voting for it felt wrong.

Didn't feel wrong to me because it was my first time playing it. I loved it.

I just wanna point out that this game has far more annoying shit, including controls than TLG ever game me. I'm wondering if people have an amnesia cause this game can feel archaic when climbing. Still LOVED it. This studio is amazing. I get it now. Both TLG and SotC are solid 9.5/10 for me.

I didn't play a lot of games last year, or at least new ones I thought were worth voting for I guess.

Just want to give a shout out to my #1, 428: Shibuya Scramble, again because I really think anybody that has enough patience to play a Visual Novel in general would love it. Also my only HM, Taiko no Tatsujin: Drum n Fun, because it's just some good fun and I really aughta play these kinds of games more often.

@minamik haven't have that combo but I love turf war in the game. Yesterday was a bad day. Failed like 20 quests. Mainly Behemoth or Teostra-Lunastra combo. Always get close on the latter fight but some guy is ill-equipped. Learned Astral Jerky is a clutch item for it. Other times is because a host abandons the quest and difficulity stays high which is almost always fighting a losing battle.
Still have not beaten Behemoth or Lunastra excluding the 1st encounter where you don't kill them.
Also did the Witcher one but is that only 1 quest? That fight was so long though I spent some time exploring but didn't do a tree top side-quest. Also was a hit away from beating it before I got ganged up on and knocked out once. Still salty about that one. Going back and hit once to end the quest.

Games I played that didn't make the list:Yakuza Kiwami 2 - Wasn't feeling the storyA Way Out - The whole final fight made no sensePersona 5: Dancing in Starlight - No story really. P4Dan was better even back on Vita when I played that

@tearju-engi I haven't even tried to slay Behemoth, cause I feel like I'd be the one messing something up, especially after I saw in that first hunt where it flees, how ecliptic meteor messes with the camera. How am I supposed to find a comet to hide behind when the camera is forcing me to look at the sky?

Lunastra is basically just a ramped up Teostra though. I think you can interrupt the explosion with a flash pod, maybe, but yeah, if you get hit by it, you need to be immediately using an astera jerky because its recoverable damage.

I only did the Witcher quest once so far, and yeah, that was a really long fight. I think its only one quest, but like you said, there are side quests in the quest itself, which I didn't realize when I was doing it, aside from what looked like a few gajalakka tracks or something.

Update: I started and played 5 hours of Spider-Man with my family today. This game isn’t very good at all. It feels like it’s in-Line with the bad checklist open world trends of the past decade while adding a wise ass protagonist to make hacking towers all the more annoying.

I JUST criticized RDR2 for characters yapping in my ear about a whole lot of NOTHING. Well, RDR2 is waaaaay more tasteful than this game. The game told me I had to “kill time” while I wait for Dr Octavious to call me. So great I have to swing around and do filler tower missions. In the middle of it, Jonah Jameson yells about a bunch of nonsense in your ear, then it’s followed by Mary Jane who says she won’t quit her pursuit of suspicious museum nonsense, then Aunt May immediately calls me to ask if everything is ok. This unnecessary dialogue while I swing around New York is soooo tired 5 hours into the game. It adds nothing.

This game is just a constant stream of information that adds nothing to my enjoyment. Why would I need or want to collect backpacks to get better moves or armour or whatever all the while characters talk in my ear and I get random crime alerts. This is overwhelming in the worst way.

Spider tokens
Random crime
Towers to hack
Plain as day upgrade trees
Every line of dialogue is in a constant state of sarcasm or attempt of humour

YIKES
No clue how this game made #3

Unfair for people to shit on Arkham Knight when the combat in that game is more fun, the writing is better, the atmosphere, score, general audio, and controls are far and beyond superior.

@mbun Hello, it is I, the person that also helped give points to ONRUSH and Bloodstained.

I've been on vacation so I haven't checked out the forum but it's good to see that God of War took its rightful place, although I personally don't even think RDR2 should be anywhere near the top 10.

Here's my list and all that jazz:

God of War

Spider-Man

Fallout 76

Ni No Kuni 2

Honorable Mentions:

Monster Hunter: World

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon

ONRUSH

Warhammer: Vermintide II

I've bolded games that didn't make the list, so I can chastise you all for your mistakes choices.

Fallout 76 - Yep, it's a meme to hate this game but as a person that despised the story of Fallout 4, this was pretty much everything I wanted from the series - a lot of exploration, weapon customization, and I found some of the quest lines to be my favorite in the entire series. It wasn't the most stable thing in the world but I didn't have nearly the number of problems that everyone else did with it. I'll defend this game until the end of the earth, I just don't expect anyone to agree with me.

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon - I'm honestly shocked this didn't make the list, I thought this was a dark horse candidate for top 10 easily. We haven't had a "proper" Castlevania game in forever and this adds in clever tweaks that elevate the experience. Play it!

ONRUSH - I wouldn't have played this if it wasn't given away for free but I immensely enjoyed my time with this "racer". It's so unique in comparison to nearly everything else released this year and I'm actually fairly close to getting the platinum on this bad boy. If the online servers had been more stable, it just may have cracked into the numbered section of my list.

Warhammer: Vermintide II - A very late change threw this onto my list and I have to say - this is the best online multiplayer game of 2018. I've been dying for another Left 4 Dead and I'd say this easily fills the void, if not exceeds those expectations due to classes and weapon crafting.

@sabotagethetruth Love that you love Fallout 76. Haven’t played it and probably never will , but it’s nice to hear someone not hate on it!

Speaking of not hating on it, one of the most prominent Fallout YouTube creators ManyATrueNerd shares your opinion on 76 and is planning on putting together a Mega Video. He’s been working on it for quite some time but I think it might be coming out this Saturday. It’ll likely be called “Fallout 76 is better than you think”, to match his Fallout 3 video. I recommend keeping an eye out!

@axel It was over by February 22, when the questions were taken. It should be available to everyone this weekend, so check it out and decide whether you want to get more elaborate response from Ian and Brandon.